


Burn Bright

by shairiru



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, M/M, age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shairiru/pseuds/shairiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midorima is a doctor who also deals with dying patients.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Happy MidoAka Day!!!

Akashi Seijuurou. 

Age nineteen. 

Heir to an ever-expanding business conglomerate. 

An intelligent young man. 

Unfortunately dying.

It is a real misfortune for such a person with a bright future and a lot of resources to have acquired a disease that has no cure. Only death awaits.

 

It isn’t new for Midorima Shintarou to be assigned to dying patients. Through years of experience, he has managed to grasp how to handle things. But he must admit, it never gets better.

Seeing the red-haired youth who could have been enjoying a life at the university, making friends, fulfilling his dreams, now confined in a private hospital room just waiting for the day he drops dead fills him with sadness. But as this boy’s doctor, the first thing he must not show is weakness.

The boy never speaks unless spoken to. Midorima would always arrive at his room and see him staring out of the window. He knows that look so well: a person wishing that he could have done more, regretting the opportunities he let past. His red eyes, Midorima supposes, must have held a bright, burning flame. A pair of eyes that once showed passion. But now, they are only dull and lifeless. A bonfire with dying flames. And it has always been Midorima’s wish that his dying patients may leave the world with a pair of eyes burning bright.

“I wonder why you keep on coming here when I can’t be treated anyway,” Akashi tells him one day.

“It is my duty as your doctor to keep tabs on you.”

“Aren’t you insulted? They assign you to people who are already beyond saving. What good is your education to people like me?”

“I chose to be here, I was not assigned.”

“Why? Do you lack the capacity to treat people?”

“Of course not,” he huffs, “I am, in fact, a surgeon. It’s just that, I want to make people like you believe. Have you looked in a mirror these days? Your eyes are dead. You believe yourself to be dead when you’re just dying. With the little life you have left, you can still live. That is what I want to make you realize.”

“My father almost never visits anymore. I think he already thinks of me dead. All my life, I lived to be the son he wants me to be. I did what he wanted, thinking that those things I want, I’ll have more time for them in the future,” his voice breaks, tears flowing from his eyes, “But that future isn’t going to last long now.”

“There’s still some left, even how little it is. Live it the way you want to and you shall have no regrets.”

 

The following day, Midorima checks on Akashi and sees him concentrating on a shogi board, seeming to have a game with an imagined opponent. It is a simple thing, but Midorima sees the fire lit in the boy’s eyes and he feels happy.

“Playing shogi?”

“You told me that I could live the little life I gave left,” he answers without looking at him.

“You can do so much more. We can arrange a tour for you, a trip out of town. I believe your body can still handle that.”

“It has always been my dream to be a professional shogi player. If I was not to succeed my father in leading the company, I would have taken the path of shogi.”

“I see. But playing alone isn’t much of fun, I’d reckon.”

“No one around can play.”

“I do. And I’m a pretty good player, if I say so myself.”

Akashi looks up at him, and for the first time since he was confined, smiles.

“Would you play with me then?”

“It’s a pleasure.”

 

As a doctor who deals with dying patients, it is crucial for him to know the limits of the relationships he builds with them. One where he knows them enough to build rapport, but not close enough to get too attached. It was the ideal set-up. But as the world is not ideal, there is always an exception. And in his world, that exception is Akashi Seijuurou. For there is something  with that boy that he let himself open, that he let himself get attached. He let himself be the best friend that boy has always yearned for. He let himself love that boy even if he knows the fate that awaits Akashi. And he let himself be loved by that boy who yearned to live with the little time he has left.

 

Akashi dies on an autumn afternoon when the fiery red leaves and the setting sun matched the burning flames that was in his eyes. 

 

 

 


End file.
